Year: 2025

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to today’s post is brought to you by DucksRising, a reflective and reluctant heavy hitter. Special thanks for the post!

Introduction

During the pandemic, I was recruited to join a group manufactured spend (MS) play. This play involved hundreds of users and mimicked the operations of a large buying group. Already familiar with the rest of the credit card optimization landscape, I followed the predictable arc of every other user – initial small investments, followed later by larger purchases, eventually climaxing into a scale that seems unrecognizable at this point. Among certain apex predators, the profits from participating in this group were stratospheric. I have no doubt that the anecdotes of a few noteworthy purchases helped normalize the prevailing attitude that one should always be pushing higher, farther, and faster. Much like Karen Hill observed during the wives gathering of Goodfellas – it all seemed so normal when you were surrounded by it. I distinctly remember “don’t be poor” becoming part of the lexicon at some point in time. My own returns exceeded some of the users who participated at the minimum level, and generally provided more than what I would have gotten paying taxes and buying Visa gift cards, but thankfully I never reached the upper echelon, for reasons that will become clear.

During 2023, it became rapidly clear that the bottom was falling out of our joint venture. After a few days, leadership posted a message that they were lawyering up and severing all communications. Whether it’s social anxiety, an attitude of “F*?k The Bank” at all costs, or traditional narcissism, I have noticed for quite some time that every award blogger or noteworthy figure in this hobby seems deeply flawed at best, troubled at worst. Some of these figures are so awful they have spawned parody social media accounts. The culture and leadership of this group was more or less on this level.

Leadership attempted to nominate a replacement, an imbecile (probably seduced by the ideas of collecting the same administrative fees the original leadership had collected) who lasted exactly a day before loud-quitting via group message. Eventually it would turn to 3 people who made a reasonable pitch at righting the ship – they too would fail, although their effort seemed genuine – it is difficult to say how much was ever in their control. Original leadership’s only actual parting gift was organizing the hundreds of users into collections of individuals who had participated at a level similar to their own. Some of these groups were active, most were not, and in the end there ended up being two groups – those who had participated at a large level, and everyone else.

Money Talks, Bulls*#t Walks

Much like the pandemic showed that humanity’s natural instinct towards retreating into tribes is undefeated, these groups formed diametrically opposing viewpoints. The smaller group who demonstrated significant spend always seemed to have more information and always be one step ahead. They also generally looked down upon the larger group, referring to this group as “the masses”, “the poors”, etc. The larger group seemed more diverse, more outspoken, and at times significantly more unstable. Screenshots from each group occasionally made it to the other channel, igniting controversy. Regardless of these dynamics, it was clear after 1-2 months that a significant percentage of initial investments were not returning to anyone; they were lost.

One of the great fallacies of our hobby is optimization – the idea that you should be extracting as much money from the banks as possible at all costs. This is only partially true. You should only be grabbing as much low hanging fruit as possible. Even most award bloggers lose sight of the fact that spending time banging at Rakuten, shopping portals, etc. is generally a net negative. Seeing the entire picture is paramount.

Blitzkrieg

Again, during 2023 the entire picture trying to recoup tens of thousands, or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars, seemed daunting. Some users of the group experienced a profound mental health crisis. Some seemed unbothered. Most landed somewhere in the middle of this. The outside perspective was difficult to deal with – rival buying groups and moderators from varying subreddits openly cheered on the demise of the group and encouraged suicide. Some tribes are… built differently than others. Amidst this chaos, and with the perspective of time, the landscape view showed something different – while American Express was the biggest problem for almost everyone, many had positions spread across anywhere from 2 to 7 banks.

Another factor: financial institutions are filled with incredibly stupid people, and simultaneously do not give their employees an opportunity to help. It rapidly became clear that fighting your own personal lightning war against the banks was the path toward success. Certain departments within a handful of specific financial institutions quickly were overrun and approved the return of credit card purchases en masse before eventually applying speed gates. This would repeat later with Paypal. The days of the PayPal Mafia are long gone, but in a deeply ironic twist, despite being outshone by their hotter sorority sister Venmo while also having outsourced all of their customer service operations abroad, PayPal was the only company to be proactive: running a query, sorting by spend, and apparently calling various whales of the group attempting to figure out why $17 million in payments were being returned. Simply put, many of these institutions rely on lowly-paid customer service grunts to flag and elevate issues, although the exact procedure for larger banks is likely a bit more proprietary and nuanced. The smaller the bank, generally the more generous, and generally speaking after 3-4 months the majority of users had all or the majority of their investment recouped. There were some individuals who were out $10,000-$20,000 here and there, or for whom it took 6-12 months to become whole, but the common denominator in this group was garden variety incompetence. Shutdowns came and went, some were actually defeated by what seems like a handful, and in some cases are still progressing to this day.

El Fin

With the benefit of hindsight, there are too many other lessons learned across too many parts of one’s life to expand on. I learned that the line between playing a small role and medium role in a joint venture can be rapidly crossed with little to no thought outside of the financial rewards. I learned applying large stress tests to a financial institution comes with a considerable responsibility – being able to bullsh*t dynamically, reading T&Cs, leaving your job for an hour at a time perhaps several times a day. I learned that “Flight or Flight” within humans extrapolates congruently with pressure exerted, real or perceived. I learned that, as Gen Z says: when people show you who they are, believe them. Looking down the road – I have no doubt that other plays will emerge (or perhaps already have in other communities), and decisions will again need to be crossed, this time with the benefit of experience. This hobby is unlike most others in so many ways, we’re all mostly wandering without a map at times. As someone much smarter than I once scrawled on a picnic table: There is No Fate But What We Make

– DuckRising

The PayPal mafia: 2025.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to today’s post is brought to you by @MForch, a hardened churner turned advantage player turned future real estate baron. Special thanks for the post!

We all know the holy grail of this hobby: CPP (Cents Per Point). We obsess over whether that Hyatt redemption was 2.1 or 5.5 cents per point. We brag about the $15,000 First Class flight we bought for 80k miles.

But there is a much more important metric that almost no one in the churning community talks about: CPH (Cents Per Hour).

If you spend ten hours a week chasing a $200 bank bonus or driving to three different grocery stores to find the one cashier who still allows certain transactions, you aren’t winning. You’re just working a second job for minimum wage.

Laziness Backed by Science

If you’ve ever read a self-help or business book, you can summarize 90% of them with one concept: The 80/20 Rule. 80% of your profits come from 20% of your activities. Usually, that’s high-level scaling a specific play that actually moves the needle. Yet, most people in this hobby spread themselves thin, spending time on every brilliant Amex Offer, hotel credits they could just do from a Vegas pool and every convoluted shopping portal stack. Reading all the blogs, message boards, slacks and discords(the emoji month later).You are falling into the rabbit hole because your return on time is abysmal.

Scaling vs. Scavenging

I recently had a conversation at a MEAB meetup with one of the many Davids in our corner of the internet. David is a hustler, saw some of myself in him—he was doing a little bit of everything. He had ten different plates spinning, most of them decent sized but not a real wage replacement.

I asked him point-blank: “Why aren’t you focusing on scaling what you’re actually good at?”

He was doing what most of us do: scavenging for crumbs because we’re afraid to miss out on any new play. I told him to pick the one play he saw as truly scalable and go all-in. He took the advice. Fast forward to today: he has 100x’d that single play and now has a Plum situation most of us are jealous of.

He didn’t find a new secret; he just stopped doing the small stuff so he had the bandwidth to scale the big stuff. That is pure gold.

My Shift: From Points to Property

Lately, I’ve been focused heavily on my Real Estate business. Why? Because for me, the return on time is simply better. A single successful property acquisition or a well-managed renovation yields a profit margin that makes a $500 referral bonus look like pocket change.

However I haven’t forgotten my churning tools to increase the ROI of my real estate plays.
The advantage player (AP) mindset doesn’t stay in the credit card world. I apply the same social engineering and optimization tactics to my real estate business:

• The Stack: Buy a gift card with a dash of this or an uber discount to fund renovation materials. Coupons for huge off or become a cash back monitor to squeeze some extra juice out of the deal.
• Social Engineering: Negotiating discounts with contractors(would you take credit card?) and stores using the same persistence we use with reconsideration lines for open or damaged items. Finding a friendly cashier for your shenanigans.
• Arbitrage: Finding the gap between what a property is worth and what I can get it for, just like finding a mispriced award seat.
• Taxes: Beating the fees while paying your taxes, Even prepaying just to get it returned days later at closing.

Know Your Worth

The Points and miles lifestyle isn’t about working harder; it’s about burning the least amount of your life energy for the most amount of profit.

If a play takes you four hours and nets you $40, your CPH is $10. You’re better off working at a Cracker Barrel and buying the points.

Stop spreading yourself thin. Look at your spreadsheet. Identify the one play that has the highest scalability and the lowest time commitment. Don’t stop paying attention just focus that attention. Your 80% isn’t my 80%- we all have different advantages in the world.

– @mforch

Pictured: @mforch

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to us by Matt’s P2, Lindsay! Special thanks for the post!

When you’re a P2, especially if your P1 is the infamous MEAB, there’s a level of normalcy that becomes second nature. For example, on any given day a hundred credit cards could arrive at the house and you don’t bat an eye. Or perhaps you mention to your P1 that all the kids will be gone for Thanksgiving, and suddenly you’re going on a Christmas market extravaganza for the second year in a row. (It was amazing, by the way, there’s the cutest elf themed market in Cologne that I highly recommend). 

So, yes. I…and perhaps you as well my fellow P2…operate on a different level than the average human. One that is an intense privilege to experience. One that will ruin our children as they age because ‘ew, I have to fly coach are you kidding me?’ or ‘you’ve never been to Europe? That’s so cute’ or even ‘for our wedding, can we take Qatar First Class to Dubai? We don’t want to have to fly with the regular people.’

Dear readers, I want to be clear that I’m being slightly flippant, but I also see nothing wrong with this. My P1 works incredibly hard to give us the life that we lead. So much so that he basically works two jobs: his regular life, and his points one. Additionally, as a formerly single mom who lived in low-income apartments across the hallway from a stripper who would come over and steal my make-up I never could have GUESSED that I’d be able to take my mom and daughter to Paris on lie flat seats because my husband found us great award space. 

P2’s, let’s face it. We are on a different level. And we are lucky. Soooo lucky. There are many things in this new level that I did not anticipate. Big, life changing experiences like having to explain to your friend group that YES, you fly first class but NO, you’re not secretly a trust fund baby. Yes, there are many things about this life that I didn’t expect. However…

However…

I think one of the largest things I didn’t anticipate was the inability to watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives without thinking to myself “ok cool story bro, but that’s not super special.”

HEAR ME OUT LOYAL MEAB FANS. 

If you’re anything like me (and I’m talking to the P2’s here) then you’re watching, or have watched, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu. If you’re not watching this show, it’s a shame, because it’s demonstrably the best reality show on TV right now, hands down. Even if you’re not watching, I’m sure some of it has seeped into your lives and your streams. From the term “Fruity Pebbles” to low dosing ketamine when you have a fight with your husband to whether or not the Afflecks are actually related to Ben, the show is an exquisite romp that will leave you with your mouth hanging open and your fingers slamming the “next episode” button. BUT, you’ll never want to skip the intro because it is that good. 

Now, you might be wondering, how in the world does this connect to the life of the average P2? Don’t worry, I’m getting there. The ladies on SLOMW are constantly traveling, whether it be Europe, LA, or simply St. George. Part of the fun of the show is watching the women traveling. It’s meant to be the thing. The big experience that proves these women have made it big. We, as the audience, are supposed to watch with a sense of awe as the women enter into their hotel rooms or travel to exotic places like Beaver, Utah. 

Yet, when I’m watching, I find myself often sort of sneering at the experience of the travel itself. Sometimes I’m like “Huh. That room is just meh.” or WORSE, I’ll think to myself “ew, she flew Southwest, where every seat is first class?” 

Let me try and give a good example. There’s an episode (or maybe even two) where #momtok and #dadtok get flown out to LA to do press or something like that (IDK, it doesn’t matter). And, sure, they get professional hair and make-up, and sure, they get to do cool things like give interviews and have busses with their boobs er, faces on them. BUT, their hotel was only sort of…OK. Like, it was nice, I guess, but I was convinced that if any one of them had any sort of status they’d have been given a better room. Or, perhaps, gone to a different hotel that was bougie-er (is that a word?) So, the very thing that Hulu is trying to sell me: beauty, influence, extravagant travel to extravagant places…I’ve already experienced, probably in better accommodations. And I’m just a girl with no influence and no followers. 

Which got me thinking. My lovely P2’s, are we…are we influencers without the drama? Because I guarantee you that I’ve flown better, eaten better, had better rooms, and seen more things than the lovely Taylor Frankie Paul…and I didn’t need to be involved in a scandal to do it. And sure, I’d love their reality TV paycheck, but other than that it’s gotten to the point where “next steps” are things that the average person couldn’t dream of, and typically involves things we can’t get with points. 

For example, I want to stay at Chateau Marmont like a freaking A list celebrity. I want to stay overnight at the Palace of Versailles like a princess. I want to go to Club 33 at Disneyland, then stay in the guest suite above Pirates of the Caribbean (even though I’m currently in a fight with Disney because I think their Genie Pass RUINED EVERYTHING, but if they offered me a stay inside the park I don’t physically have the willpower to turn it down). 

These are the last dregs of bucket list items that, annoyingly, points are unable to purchase. These are the things that normal people typically can’t do, and these are the experiences that even the beautiful ladies of the BEST REALITY SHOW ON TELEVISION have yet to do. 

Now, I’m painfully aware of how lucky I am. I’m also aware of how much life has changed in irrevocable ways since MEAB started playing the points game. I’m the luckiest passenger princess, the luckiest bougie bitch, and I am so grateful for everything that my family and I get to see and do and experience. But, dear readers…how do we as P2’s get to that “next level?”

Well, I’ve thought about it, and I’m officially pitching a new reality show concept. 

It will be called “The Bougie Lives of P1 Wives”(™). It will be almost exclusively travel based, with the exception of the home shots where our P1’s tell us (probably mic’d but behind a closed door for drama) that they’ve booked us on some crazy cool first class trip because award space opened up. The next shot will be P2TOK(™) getting drunk on Krug 30,000 feet in the air while flying Qantas First Class. We’ll fawn over the pajamas that we get, and exclaim over the amenities kit with $200 perfume samples. (As an aside, that actually happened, MEAB brought me back some from his latest flight and I about died when I looked up the price). 

We’ll stay, on points, at places like the Waldorf Astoria Cabo, or an old castle in Argentina, or in an overwater bungalo in the Maldives. The drama will not, as may be assumed, come from infighting, but from 4x reward redemption days at Safeway where there will be multiple shots of P1TOK(™) and their P2’s rushing from store to store to grind because “do you want to go Koh Samui or not Lindsay?” The shot will end with us, in the passenger seat, with a little sweet drink for our sweet little faces. 

If your P2 would like to be a part of this, or, if you happen to know any Hollywood producers who’d be interested in my pitch, please let me know! If not..well..that’s ok. Just remember the next time your P1 is grinding for points, or you’re on hold with a credit card company for 30 minutes because the card is in your name, that you are cooler than an influencer. 

– Lindsay

Netflix: Please reach out, I’m here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to today’s post is brought to you Sam from HelpMeBuildCredit.com and from the CardRight card tracking tool. Special thanks for the post!

Identity theft is on the rise, with over $12.7 billion stolen in 2024 in the U.S. And guess what? Just like we like to make money off our couch, thieves learned how to do that as well (they call it Couch MG, which stands for money grab). But don’t worry, we’ve got a plan to keep your personal info locked up tighter than a bank vault, and now it’s the thief’s turn to be tripping on rakes.

Here are the steps to take to bulletproof your identity. However, please note that not all steps are necessary if you have never been a victim of identity theft (unless you have the letters OCD following your name). But this info is good to know just in case you ever do become a victim, God forbid. 

• Guard your credit like a precious possession
  Identity thieves love opening credit cards in your name (and no, it’s not because they want to earn a welcome bonus). Don’t let them mess with you! Here’s how to keep them out:
  
  • Credit freeze: Lock your credit reports so no one can sneak new accounts under your name. It’s simple and free.
    
  • Credit monitoring: Sign up for a credit monitoring service to get alerts when something shady happens with your credit. If you see an unfamiliar inquiry, you can throw the thief a rake.
    
    There are various free credit monitoring options that alert you on one or more credit bureaus.
    
    If you want to receive alerts to all three credit bureaus for free, you can sign up to the following credit monitoring services:
    
    – Credit Karma: Monitors Transunion and Equifax.
    – Experian: Monitors Experian. 
    – Chase Credit Journey: Chase Credit Journey also provides your free report from Experian, but in addition, you get the benefit of identity theft insurance which they offer (If it’s free, why not take two?)
    
• Fraud alert: This is like putting a “Do Not Enter” sign on your credit report, though it can slow you down when you need your own credit. Use this if you’re extra paranoid.
  
• Tax and employment fraud: not on your watch
  Thieves can also file fake tax returns or claim employment/unemployment benefits in your name. Here’s how to stop them:
  
  • Tax fraud: Get an IP PIN from the IRS. Think of it as a secret code that only you know. Also, try filing early to beat fraudulent tax filers.
    
  • Employment fraud: Request a wage transcript from the IRS and report any unemployment fraud to the U.S. Department of Labor ASAP.
    
• Bank accounts: don’t let them drain ‘em
  Thieves might try to clean you out or open new accounts in your name so they can do some fun stuff with it (which does not include earning a welcome bonus). Order your credit report to check for fraudulent activity from companies such as ChexSystems, CrossCheck, AskCertegy, or the like.
  Set up fraud alerts with your bank and review your statements regularly. Use strong passwords (and consider two-step verification) to make it harder for them to access your accounts. 
  
• Investment accounts: hold on tight
  They can make off with all your investments. In order to protect yourself, use an investment brokerage that offers protection against fraud. Fidelity and Charles Schwab are good options.
  
• Medical identity theft: they cannot have their share in your doctor’s prescription
  Someone could use your medical insurance to get treatments or prescriptions in your name. Keep your docs in the loop, and always review your credit report for medical collections that don’t belong to you. Dispute any mistakes from your medical records.
  
• Criminal identity theft: don’t get caught in the wrong place
  If a thief uses your identity for criminal activity, it could cause major complications – especially if you’re wrongly linked to crimes. If this happens, get legal advice pronto. You can also sign up for dark web monitoring, such as Identity Force, to keep tabs on any shady activity tied to your info.

Sneaky trick to try

Now, once I have the mic, let me add one more safety tip. Here’s a trick to check whether a suspicious caller is a scammer:

Your phone rings, and you suspect that an individual with fraudulent intent is on the other end of the line. While the caller is likely speaking English, ask for a Spanish-speaking representative. Every bank has a department with Spanish-speaking reps, while the thieves don’t. If the call is authentic, they will transfer you to the Spanish (or Espagnol, as they say) department. If that happens and you’d like to continue in English, ask to get transferred back to the English team, or ask the rep if they speak English as well (they very often speak both).

– Sam, HelpMeBuildCredit.com, CardRight.com

Not all two factor authentication services are real though, even this legitimate looking one.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to today’s post is brought to you by Jerry, an avid MEAB Patreon member (his words, not mine). Special thanks for the post!

Listen up, recent and soon-to-be college graduates.

You’re about to enter what will hopefully be a long, happy career—assuming The Architects of AI and their shareholders invite you into the Thunderdome known as the American workforce. If you’re fortunate enough to be gainfully employed, your responsibilities— both professional and personal—will obviously increase dramatically.

Let’s assume you’re leaving school with very little financial literacy (which, unfortunately, may be a feature and not a bug of our education system and its corporate overlords). If you are organized, and if your income is reliably greater than your expenses, I believe churning can jump-start your financial literacy and your path to financial independence faster than anything else. As they say: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now.

The Major Expenses

Of course everyone has their unique situation, but most of you will need money for the following:

1. Rent
2. Moving expenses
3. Wardrobe updates
4. Groceries
5. Student loans
6. Transportation
7. Bars and nightlife
8. Trips back to campus to see your sweetheart
9. Travel for weddings and bachelor/bachelorette parties

Churning will force you to view the opportunity cost of every expense, both in how you obtain the good or service as well as how you will ultimately pay for it. Churning pushes you to question the default behavior of the masses. It’s a “baptism by fire” into financial literacy because it requires calculated risks.

Sure, You Can Do Things the Normal Way… But Why?

Rent:
Yes, you can pay rent with a check. But there are other options.

Moving expenses:
Sure, you could pay the moving company with a debit card because Dave Ramsey said so. Or, you could open a credit card with a 0% intro APR promotion that also earns transferable points.

Clothing:
You could open a GAP store card because Betty behind the counter smiled nicely… or you could buy discounted GAP gift cards at Kroger while earning fuel points and a 4X multiplier on an American Express.

Student loans:
You absolutely can pay your monthly amount due via ACH. Alternatively, you could explore paying off the full balance with a 0% APR or rewards-earning credit card via a Fintech with historical ties to Silicon Valley Bank. Side note: discharging student loans in bankruptcy is nearly impossible, but discharging credit card balances is slightly easier (I’m definitely not a lawyer and this is definitely not advice).

Nightlife:
Sure, you can start the happy hour at 4:00 PM ET on Friday. Or, you can start it at 6:00 PM. For those in recovery, maybe you substitute boozing for floozing if your “AA” sponsor allows (IYKYK).

Travel rewards:
Sure, you can mirror your boss and get a Delta SkyPesos SkyMiles American Express card and put everything on it. But if the only flight available to Lubbock on homecoming weekend is on an expensive American Airlines flight, your lover at Texas Tech will wish you had a stash of Alaska Atmos Rewards instead.

The Moment of Truth
Let’s fast-forward a few months. You’ve maxed out your 0% APR opportunities, and those balances are coming due. Now what?

Start exploring personal lines of credit at local credit unions. These often offer more manageable minimum payments than credit cards or installment loans (e.g., student loans, auto loans). Do your own research and run your own numbers. If you spin up a line of credit, don’t just assume you must pay that line of credit from a bank account. Always be probing.

One Year Later…

If you stay organized and remain cash flow positive, within a year you may find yourself:

• “free” of student loans,
• sitting on sizable miles and points balances, and
• treating your lover in Lubbock to a shopping spree at lululemon (as long as their heart’s desire is $75 or less for this quarter).

– Jerry (a sophomoric student in the MEAB Slack channel, which may be harder to get into than Harvard)

A candid look into Jerry’s family tree.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts, today’s post is brought to you by a supply chain expert churner ChooChooTrain. Special thanks for the post!

Introduction

Most churners graduate through three lenses of measuring returns. Only one survives scale.

• Face value: Absolute dollars. No time. No context. Actively misleading once capital grows.
• ROI/APR: Adjusts for capital and time, but collapses the cycle into a single return and ignores reuse.
• Velocity: Measures how fast capital completes cycles and becomes available again.

Velocity matters because churning isn’t a one-shot game. It’s a flow problem.

What matters isn’t the return on a single play, but how capital moves through the system:

• how quickly it comes back,
• whether it can be reused without friction,
• and how many plays (and players) can run in parallel without breaking.

Velocity is how you see whether that flow actually works.

For a deeper treatment of velocity as a system constraint, see MEAB’s Velocity of Money, Part One and Part Two. 

Early on, velocity is obvious because monitoring is mandatory. Capital is tight. Timing matters. You know how long money must sit, when it can move, and what breaks if it doesn’t.

As bankroll grows, monitoring quietly shifts from mandatory to optional. Capital spreads wide enough that nothing feels urgent. Timing slack creeps in. Money sits longer than necessary—not because you chose it to, but because nothing forces it to move.

If you’ve been at this long enough, you’ve done all of these:

• “Found” $5k parked in an account you forgot existed
• Missed a bonus because you forgot ten debit swipes on some absurd cadence
• Hit MSR 90 days from card receipt instead of account open and lost the bonus

They feel like one-off mistakes. They’re not. They’re symptoms of systems cushioned by excess inventory.

Core thesis: Your bankroll is inventory. Excess inventory hides problems.

What a Big Bankroll Actually Buys You

Congratulations! You’re rich enough that you can ignore this. Too bad you’re not rich enough that ignoring it doesn’t hurt.

A large bankroll mostly buys comfort: longer payout timelines without better returns, idle capital because it’s easier, messy systems because nothing forces cleanup. 

Your bankroll isn’t enabling better plays. It’s subsidizing inattention. Banks appreciate the donation.

What Supply Chain Figured Out Long Ago

In supply chain 101, there’s a standard illustration: a boat sailing smoothly in high waters.

Below the surface are rocks—bottlenecks, defects, bad processes. As long as the water level (inventory) stays high, the ship sails fine.

Lower the water level and the illusion disappears. The same rocks surface and stop progress. Nothing broke. It was broken the entire time.

A large bankroll does the same thing. Throughput looks fine. Bonuses post. Points flow. But inventory turns lag. Velocity decays quietly.

Fix the System, Not the Symptoms

Kaizen is a manufacturing discipline built around continuous, incremental improvement. Not optimization theater. Not big redesigns. Small fixes, applied relentlessly, with pressure applied.

In manufacturing, you don’t Kaizen by adding inventory. You Kaizen by removing it until the system complains.

If nothing ever feels tight, nothing is getting better. In churning, that “complaint” usually looks like: 

• A flow that only works with constant manual babysitting
• Timing failures once even modest variance appears
• Processes that survive solely because float keeps expanding.

These aren’t edge cases. They’re structural warnings.

The Counterintuitive Fix

Improvement starts by lowering the bankroll in play.

Reduce inventory until friction appears. Then treat that friction as a signal, not failure. The goal isn’t to immediately eliminate it, but to understand why it exists.

That analysis often leads to unglamorous fixes: 

• Accepting lower headline returns to simplify flows
• Cutting clever edge cases that don’t survive scale
• Finally automating recurring and ad-hoc tasks instead of relying on memory.

The common mistake is reacting by adding capital back in. That doesn’t fix the system. It just quiets it again.

When More Money Is Useful

There are times when increasing bankroll makes sense. The test is simple: does more capital expand what you can capture, or merely prop up how you operate?

• If added capital lets you take a discrete opportunity without altering steady-state flow, your system is likely ready.
• If added capital is required just to keep things moving, it isn’t.

Supply chains solved this long ago. Warehouses aren’t staffed for December in April. Capacity is added briefly for peak demand, then unwound. Ugly. Effective.

Churning’s equivalent is short-term liquidity—HELOCs, margin, similar tools—used deliberately and temporarily. These work only when layered on top of stable flow. Used during system repair, they mask problems instead of solving them. Listen to Kai talk about HELOCs and margin accounts in depth on The Daily Churn Ep 88.

Once extra capital becomes part of steady-state operations, it stops adding flexibility and starts functioning as a crutch.

Increase capacity to handle exceptions, not to subsidize inefficiency.

The End State: Right-Sized, Not Bigger

The goal isn’t a minimal bankroll. It’s a right-sized one. 

Right-sized capital reveals problems instead of burying them. It forces timing discipline. It makes velocity visible again. 

And it’s not permanent. Issuer behavior changes. Enforcement tightens. Personal capacity shifts. A bankroll that’s right-sized today won’t be tomorrow.

High water feels safe—until it isn’t.

Float conceals. Flow reveals.

– ChooChooTrain

The “ChooChooTrain conjoined rocks of anti-triumph”, now available as a print.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt is on vacation until at or around January 1, 2026. Until then we have guest posts. Today’s post is brought to you by irieriley at my favorite new blog, Chasing Cetacans. Special thanks for the post!

I’ve always been a fan of creative ways to explain open-ended concepts in a succinct way. One of the best examples of this is the fun scale. Born out of the mountain climbing community, the fun scale gives you a very simple way to categorize your experiences as a climber into three distinct buckets: 

• Level 1 fun is true fun, that is fun when it’s happening
• Level 2 fun is fun only in retrospect, and is miserable when it’s happening
• Level 3 fun is not fun at all, even in retrospect

It’s easy to visualize how climbers fit certain peaks into these categories, but it works for plenty of things outside of mountaineering too. I’ve applied this framework to plenty of things in the churning/manufactured spend/travel world to help me make decisions for the future. 

Here’s an example of the fun scale when evaluating a trip, courtesy of my “eventful” honeymoon in South Africa a few years ago:

• Level 1: Going on safari and seeing amazing wildlife, or wine tasting in Franschoek
• Level 2: Doing the great white shark cage dive in Hermanus and seeing great white sharks while consuming lots of vomit from the seasick people next to us in the cage
• Level 3: Hiking Table Mountain the one week a year the cable car is down for maintenance, leading my P2 to break her foot on the way down

So what is there to take away from placing these experiences into buckets? In my opinion, it makes it easier to understand what you want to do more of, what you can learn from, and what you want to avoid. On that honeymoon, I realized I wanted to travel more for wildlife, needed to look out for pale faces on seatmates on boat tours, and that I needed to listen to my P2 when she said to slow down. 

It works just as well for manufactured spend (MS) and churning, too:

• Level 1: Knocking out giant points figures without getting off your couch
• Level 2: Grinding out street liquidation, or getting your money frozen for a KYC check
• Level 3: Getting rugged, shutdown, or the frozen money from level 2 requiring a trip to Lubbock.

And before you say “irieriley, this is all super obvious, I’d much rather it just be level 1 fun all the time” – those level 2 and level 3 experiences are necessary sometimes for growth. When it’s all fun and games, it’s great, but what are you going to do when the gravy train derails and you haven’t dealt with the adversity associated with those failed and semi-failed experiences? 

If 2025 is any indication, churners and MSers are going to be experiencing a lot more level 2 and level 3 fun as part of the game compared to the good times we experienced the last couple of years. I’m not trying to sound like a doomer – I think there will be ample opportunity to have a successful 2026. But I do think it’s going to require a tad bit more creativity.

Those level 2 and level 3 experiences are exactly how you learn to navigate those tricky situations easier – you’ll know the things not to do at any bank, the signs of financial distress to look for at churning-adjacent companies, and be able to napkin math the VC numbers of the new fintech du jour.

Let’s all cross our fingers that we return to some semblance of a healthy dose of level 1 fun again soon, but it’s also prudent to be clear eyed about the more difficult times that lay ahead. And that ultimately, things like shutdowns might be more like level 2.5 fun. After all, the shutdown isn’t fun, but earning the trove of points and miles you earned to cause it is.

“I guess you never really know what sort of fun you’re getting yourself into once you leave the couch, which is fine, because it doesn’t always have to be “fun” to be fun.”

– irieriley

Pictured: A group of MSers expecting level 1 fun that found out the play died this am and now they’re stuck somewhere in level 2 and 3 limbo